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Casio’s new premium Privia digital pianos are designed to look and sound great from any angle.

Casio has introduced the Privia range, keyboards that they say are “the best-sounding, best-feeling, best-looking Privia ever made.”

We’re all in favour of digital piano manufacturers taking a few more risks with the designs of their instruments, so let’s take a moment to celebrate Casio’s new PX-S7000, PX-S6000 and PX-S5000, the latest additions to its Privia range.

With a design that’s “in harmony with modern lifestyles,” these pianos not only offer a more contemporary aesthetic, but are also intended to look great from all angles. So, there is no need to place them up against a wall if you do not want to.

The Privia PX-S7000 is striking – looking a bit like a modern take on the iconic mid-century modern Hohner Clavinet D6 design.

The hybrid keyboard, meanwhile, is made of both resin and wood, and promises an expressive key mechanism with natural touch. The main body of the PX-S7000 can be detached from the stand and played anywhere, thanks to its optional 8xAA battery power. An optional SP-34 three-pedal unit can be connected for portable use, and the optional SC-900 carrying bag lets you take PX-S7000 anywhere.

The PX-S7000 features the sound of three of the finest pianos on Earth, dubbed Berlin, Hamburg and New York. Each piano has its own unique personality, and the Multi-Dimensional Morphing AiR Sound Source brings them to life with damper, string, and aliquot resonance, plus subtle mechanical sounds.

The keyboard features 400 Tones, including 50 electric piano Tones, and a variety of Tones inspired by the keyboard parts of well-known songs.

The PX-S7000’s features a 32-watt 4-way Spatial Sound System. The speaker system in the flagship PX-S7000 takes this into account; you can choose an acoustic setting to match where you piano is positioned (against a wall, in the centre of a room or on a table) and the sound will then be adjusted and optimised in each of the four speakers.

The PX-S7000 also boasts a transparent acrylic music stand and is offered in a striking, bang-on-trend ‘harmonious mustard’ colour scheme, which is designed to “harmonise beautifully with virtually any room’s interior”. You can also bottle it and have it in black or white, but mustard is definitely the way to go, in our humble (but correct) opinion.

You’ll find the same speaker system and keyboard in the PX-S6000, which is available exclusively in black. In fact, its specs look pretty similar to those of the PX-S7000, though it has fewer built-in sounds (350 as opposed to 400) and a slightly reduced feature set. The stand and fixed pedals aren’t included, either, though they can be purchased separately.

One thing the PX-S6000 has over the PX-S7000 is the Tone Modify function, which enables you to fine-tune your sounds in real-time. You can also do this on your mobile device using the Casio Music Space app, which syncs via the included wireless MIDI/audio Bluetooth adapter. This also enables tone editing on the PX-S7000.

We should also point out that both the PX-S7000 and PX-S6000 have pitchbend wheels – a useful feature that we wish more digital pianos had.

Finally, there’s the PX-S5000, the most affordable of the new pianos. This has the same keyboard as its pricier siblings but strips things back by having just 23 tones and fewer features. Again, the stand and pedals are sold separately for this one.

PX-S7000 Features:

• 400 Tones including three legendary concert grand pianos (Hamburg, New York, and Berlin)
• New Smart Hybrid Hammer Action keys with spruce sides
• Beautiful design in your choice of Harmonious Mustard, Black or White finishes
• Matching beech stand with three fixed pedals
• Illuminated touch sensor controls with assignable multi-function buttons
• LED touch ring and bright, backlit LCD display for easy navigation
• Illuminated pitch bend wheel and assignable buttons
• Microphone input with volume control and 25 dedicated microphone effects
• Includes WU-BT10 Bluetooth Audio & MIDI adapter
• Dual headphone outputs plus 1/4″ L/R outputs and expression pedal input
• Class-compliant USB port with no drivers or installation needed
• MIDI recorder, USB audio recording and audio/MIDI file playback
• Optional 8xAA battery power (AC adapter included)
• Designed to work with the Casio Music Space app for iOS/Android

The Casio Privia PX-S7000HM will be available in October, in three color options, for $2,699.99/£2,249, the PX-S7000WE/BK will cost $2,499.99/£2,099, the PX-S6000 will be available for $2,399/£1,499 and the will be PX-S5000 offered at $1,199/£999. Find out more on the Casio website.

Tom Oberheim has announced  that the new Oberheim OB-X8 is now shipping.

Oberheim OB-X8 is a new design that combines the three different voice architectures of the classic OB-X, OB-Xa, and OB-8 synths into a single instrument. The individual filter types and other unique characteristics of each model have been faithfully reproduced, along with an 100% analog signal path.

“It’s an exciting day for Oberheim and for musicians anxiously waiting for the OB-X8,” said company founder Tom Oberheim. “We’re proud to reintroduce the Oberheim sound in a new instrument. But even more, we’re proud that we’ve been able to combine the voice architectures of the various original OB series synths in a way that gives players unique new sounds and capabilities that even the originals didn’t have. It’s an amazing-sounding instrument.”

The Oberheim OB-X8 offers broader synthesis options and expressive capabilities than its predecessors, including:

• Additional SEM filter modes add high-pass, band-pass, and notch functions to the classic OB-X filter
• Vintage knob allows variable amounts of voice-to-voice variability to emulate the behavior of vintage instruments
• Velocity sensitivity adds expressiveness to volume and filter
• Channel Aftertouch adds real-time performance-based modulation
• Enhanced unison allows variable voice stacking from 1-8 voices
• Variable triangle wave cross-modulation
• Over 600 user-programmable preset locations
• Programmable per-program pan allows wider stereo presence
• Variable oscillator and noise levels

Features:

• 8-voice, pure-analog polyphony with saw, square/pulse, triangle, and noise
• Two discrete SEM/OB-X-lineage VCOs per voice deliver classic Oberheim tone
• Discrete SEM-lineage VCFs deliver authentic OB-X-style tone and presence
• Genuine Curtis filters add bold OB-Xa/OB-8 character
• Meticulously modeled envelope responses match each OB model: OB-X, OB-Xa, and OB-8
• The 61-key FATAR velocity- and touch-sensitive keyboard offers expanded expression and responsiveness
• Bi-timbral capability allows two presets simultaneously for splits and doubles
• 400-plus factory programs, including the full set of factory sounds for the OB-X, OB-SX, OB-Xa, and OB-8
• Integral, fanless, heatsink-free power supply
• Real walnut end cheeks
• High-resolution OLED display enables patch management and easy access to advanced features
• Classic Oberheim Pitch and Mod levers allow expressive note bending, vibrato, and access to arpeggiator functions

Oberheim OB-X8 Audio Demo:

The Oberheim OB-X8 is now shipping, with a retail price of $4,999.

Spitfire Audio has introduced Originals Epic Choir, a new software synth that features the sound of a 50-piece large-scale ensemble of London’s finest vocalists, recorded in the hallowed (Lyndhurst) Hall at London’s legendary AIR Studios.

“Originals Epic Choir features 50 singers, which is the biggest ensemble of voices that we’ve recorded yet,” notes Spitfire Audio in-house composer Homay Schmitz. “It’s been recorded at AIR Studios’ Lyndhurst Hall, so you get those beautiful acoustics; with it also being a former church, you get the singers in a traditional habitat as well.”

Features:

• 50-piece ensemble
• Recorded at Lyndhurst Hall, AIR Studios — home of blockbuster scores
• Three bespoke signals (Close, Tree, Ethereal)
• Split into two sections — Sopranos & Altos / Tenors & Bass — both sections offering identical articulations
• Classic shorts and longs, as well as ‘episodic’ vowel blending textures and short staccato syllables, alternating between vowel sounds

Presets:

• Sopranos & Altos: Long Ahh — A long sustained note, sung on the vowel sound “ahh”
• Sopranos & Altos: Long Mmm — A long sustained note, hummed on the consonant “mmm”
• Sopranos & Altos: Episodic Combo 1 — A long episodically changing sustained note, blending between a combination of different vowel sounds, for a textural and shifting sound
• Sopranos & Altos: Episodic Combo 2 — A long episodically changing sustained note, blending between a combination of different vowel sounds, for a textural and shifting sound
• Sopranos & Altos: Short Staccato Syllables — A short, sharp sound, sung on one of up to seven different syllabic sounds
• Sopranos & Altos: Short Staccato Syllables (keyswitch) — A short, sharp sound, sung on one of up to seven different syllabic sounds, with keyswitch functionality to change between specific syllables
• Tenors & Basses: Long Ahh — A long sustained note, sung on the vowel sound “ahh”
• Tenors & Basses: Long Mmm — A long sustained note, hummed on the consonant “mmm”
• Tenors & Basses: Episodic Combo 1 — A long episodically changing sustained note, blending between a combination of different vowel sounds, for a textural and shifting sound
• Tenors & Basses: Episodic Combo 2 — A long episodically changing sustained note, blending between a combination of different vowel sounds, for a textural and shifting sound
• Tenors & Basses: Short Staccato Syllables — A short, sharp sound, sung on one of up to seven different syllabic sounds
• Tenors & Basses: Short Staccato Syllables (keyswitch) — A short, sharp sound, sung on one of up to seven different syllabic sounds, with keyswitch functionality to change between specific syllables

Controls:

• Reverb — A realistic Hall-style impulse response
• Release — A release trigger which only applies to long patches
• Tightness — This cuts further into the note to make it tighter and only applies to short patches

Signals:

• Close – Valve spot mics summed together for a direct and upfront image of the string ensemble.
• Tree – A decca tree microphone array, giving a spacious and enveloping sound.
• Ethereal – A treated signal (saturation, reverb, EQ) which adds texture, brightness and width to the vocals, while retaining an organic feel

It is available now as an AAX-, AU-, VST2-, and VST3-compatible plug-in, supporting Native Instruments’ NKS (NATIVE KONTROL STANDARD) for Mac (OS X 10.13 – macOS 12) and Windows (7, 8, 10, and II — latest Service Pack)

Originals Epic Choir cost £29.00/$29.00 /€29.00 (inc. VAT).